Goal-oriented training, post-workshop 2012 analysis

The first thing I should say is that the Yin Style Bagua workshops put on this year by Matt Bild were absolutely incredible. In over sixteen years of doing martial arts now, the last six doing Yin Style Bagua, this year's workshops were by far the best I have ever attended. Matt was incredibly efficient and professional in getting across his agenda, which in this case was to help us all develop clarity and confidence in using the art of Yin Style for the purpose it was made: fighting. Particularly, the workshop was designed around developing clarity in use of force and positioning to achieve a good and sure result against a realistic backdrop of another skilled fighter.

That brings me to the theme of today's post-workshop post, now that I've had a couple of weeks to sort through how my thinking about training has been affected. Training has to be goal-oriented, focused, and clear, and it is an utter obligation to be diligent and serious about this including being reflective about meeting the training goals. Goals also have to be realistic and functional. This should change everything about how we train this art.

Let me talk about two kinds of goals in training. There are petty goals and then there are real ones. I won't disparage the use of petty goals as they can be quite motivational and keep engagement on track, but it is important to realize that these goals are petty. My goal to turn for 200 hours this year, nearly complete now, is a petty goal, but I think it's valuable enough to repeat something like it next year because it kept me on the circle a whole lot more than I would have been if I wasn't doing it. The upside, then, of petty goals is that they are a very good way, due to their concrete nature, to keep engaged and doing training drills. The downside, though, is that they run the risk of making training become vapid, merely a shell used as a means to achieve the goal in as easy a way as is possible. In an internal martial art, anything that turns your training into an empty shell has to be evaluated and used very carefully.

Real goals, on the other hand, are completely opposite those petty goals. They're, in a sense, more abstract, or rather they are much harder to measure saliently. For example, it is very easy to record exactly how much time I spend turning the circle, but it is very difficult for me to gauge how effectively I am succeeding at finding and maintaining the proper use of the waist in turning the circle. There just aren't simple measuring sticks to compare against for these kinds of goals. I should note, for what it's worth, that one of the primary themes Matt elucidated for us this year is exactly how the waist combines with the footwork and upper body structure while turning the circle to make it a very real combative practice, leaving almost no ambiguity in what is trying to be achieved and why.

I've spent more time since the workshop I attended in Ann Arbor thinking about how I want to restructure and focus my training than I have actually spent training (though I have been taking advantage of the opportunity to train and solidify the points made at the workshop! I've just been thinking about how to train a lot more than usual). The conclusion I cannot avoid is that my training for the next few months (and forever) needs to be organized around attaining very specific, real goals, and that petty goals might actually be one mechanism to ensure progress, as long as I don't lose the forest for the trees.

These real goals in training are the big things. I'll list a few examples to let you get a feel for what I'm meaning by this:

• Lion System: Find the (general) Lion force emitted by the waist. Make sure that force can get out appropriately. Analogous for other systems, e.g. Phoenix.
• Lion System: Get a clear grasp on the overall Lion changing strategy, interlocking, and combine it with the Lion force to accurately produce Lion System fighting. Analogous for other systems, e.g. Phoenix.
• Lion System: Understand clearly in which kinds of situations the Lion strategy is most appropriate, first intellectually and then second viscerally. Analogous for other systems.
• Lion System: Understand clearly how each of the striking methods of the system can be used to achieve Lion-flavored fighting ends. Analogous for other systems.
• Lion System: Understand clearly how the seven "borrowed" strategies that arise in the Lion System offer support to the general Lion System concept in varying situations. Analogous to other systems.
• Circle turning: Find and maintain the proper use of waist for fighting-centered turning training while meeting and maintaining the other requirements.
• Applications training: Identify and magnify ways to keep applications realistic and effective in real fighting-type situations, applying the lessons from above to generate good, accurate results that are in accordance with the requirements and goals of the animal system or methods under investigation.
• Applications training: Make all footwork provide support for and/or produce desired results so that the whole body is effectively being the weapon.
• Strike training: Erase the knowledge/training/use gaps.

These are what I mean by real goals. These are hard. They require a lot of very specific, intelligent training with a lot of careful, detailed, honest reflection and refinement.

Set a couple of real goals, based upon your level. Those might be like "get the hang of the sweeping/slicing forces in the Lion System" if you've got some experience, or they might be like the more foundational "look for full-body connected force" that is so integral to strike drilling, particularly for beginners. Keep in mind that this art is for fighting, and thus everything must reflect that goal.

If you want to see what the big deal was about Matt's workshops this year, they're doing another round near Boston, December 6-9. Details are available on the website. It's definitely worth checking out!